Baidu Plans “Search” Operating System for Mobiles

Following in the footsteps of Google yet again, China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, just revealed its plans to develop a light operating system for mobile devices that uniquely focuses on search.

CNBC reports that over the coming three to five years, the company will be creating software that enables users to access a web search box within a second of starting their smartphone or tablet computer, said Robin Li, Baidu’s chief executive. Baidu’s strategy is what Mr Li calls “box computing”, a mobile operating system that could resemble Chrome OS, the light operating system Google has developed.

“In order for an operating system to work, it needs to [do a lot of processing], but if we make it just about a search box, then the task will be much simpler. In the future, one second, you turn on the device, and you can start using the box. That’s our mission for the future of the internet,” he said.

Priority for the search giant is to first develop a wide range of new uses for the box before launching the basic system, with a vision of “transforming the search box into a universal computing tool that could replace all other interfaces.” The end goal, naturally, is to let people become increasingly dependent on the Baidu box.

Similarly, China Unicom, one of China’s largest mobile telecommunications operators, also announced the development of its own Linux-based operating system.

China has always been dependent on homegrown, local Internet sites and services but is being criticized for merely creating clones of popular Western Internet companies. With the strict internet censorship in place, it has been successful this far in keeping many US internet groups distanced from the world’s largest Internet market.